Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Happy 75th Birthday, Caped Crusader!

It was 75 years ago this week that criminals first stammered "Th...th...th...BAT-MAN!"
Thank you, Bob Kane...and Bill Finger, Jerry Robinson & Gardner Fox.
Above art by Bob Kane, scanned from recently-discovered page proofs of Detective Comics #27 (1939), is his first appearance in a story.
(He's also on the first page of the tale, but in silhouette.)
BTW, those first-generation proofs as close as any of us will ever get to the long-lost original art.

Monday, March 31, 2014

Reading Room CONQUEROR COMICS "Conquerors"

Easily one of the weirdest strips ever...
...from the only issue of the only comic this publisher ever produced!
What did the creators of this series have in mind?
It takes place on another world where long-dead people from Earth's past are now apparently immortal and can manipulate time itself!
In addition, it seems that every ethnic group has set itself up on their own planet...which begs the question as to how they would get there, since none of these groups had the technology for space travel!
Is it Heaven?
Unlikely, since Adolph Hitler is there!
Plus, the locals say the astronauts can't remove their helmets and breathe the air or they'll be unable to return to Earth!
Illustrated by Warren King, and scripted by an unknown writer, this lead story from the one and only issue of Conqueror Comics (1945) never had a sequel.
In fact, the publisher, Albrecht Publishing, never produced another comic!
In most cases like this, unused material would be sold off to another publisher who would use it as "filler", somewhere in their comics...but not Albrecht!
So we'll never know what would've happened to Bill and John Cotter as they explored this weird part of space/time!

Sunday, March 30, 2014

The Mysteries of CONQUEROR COMICS

Why is a man in ancient Chinese garb greeting an aviator debarking...
Art by Warren King
.. from an ultra-modern rocket plane?
And what is Conqueror Comics?
The answers to these and other pertinent questions will be found here
TOMORROW!

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Reading Room: CAPTAIN SCIENCE "Science vs Sorcery"

Comic book space adventurers were a dime-a-dozen in the 1950s...
...but none had better art than Captain Science!
Wow, a story where Arabs are actually good guys!
Wally Wood and Joe Orlando did the art for this tale from Youthful's Captain Science #5 (1951), and you can tell they were having the time of their lives, as they cut loose with some of the wildest stuff ever to grace sci-fi comic books.
Unlike the earlier Captain Science stories, which have never been reprinted, these Orlando/Wood stories have been re-published all over the place, but they're still well-worth seeing again!

Friday, March 28, 2014

Reading Room BLACK CAT MYSTIC "MysteryVision"

Here's a tale that could've inspired the movie They Live! as well as several Twilight Zone eps...
...plus it has a rather unique aspect we'll explain at the conclusion...
"We take our leave of Herman Scudder, who discovered that "reading" people can be as easy as reading an eye-chart...in the Twilight Zone..."
(Sorry, instinctively channeled Rod Serling for a moment...)
Pencils and inks for this never-reprinted story from Harvey's Black Cat Mystic #57 (1956) are by Jack Kirby, who rarely inked his own work since editors felt his time was better-spent penciling at a rate of up to four pages per day!
(Yes, I said per day!)
Probably written by either Kirby himself ,or partner Joe Simon.